


A Bloom in Adversity

by Emma_Trevelyan



Category: A3! (Anime), A3! (Video Game)
Genre: CW: death mention, Domesticity, Encore!: an A3! Writers Zine, Found Family, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, Other, Past Mentions of Violence and Death, Play: The Stranger (A3!), Post-Apocalypse, Recovery, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28601115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Trevelyan/pseuds/Emma_Trevelyan
Summary: '“Well…” Zero tapped her lip, her brow furrowed in thought. “Then you should pick a name!”“I can… do that?”“Sure! We can’t keep calling you ‘hey, you,’ or something. That would be rude.”Wolf stifled a laugh, trying (and failing) to disguise it as a cough. The man blinked a few times, paralyzed with indecision. Wolf couldn’t blame him.“Eren,” he finally said. “My name is Eren.”Wolf tried not to visibly stiffen; “Well, then, Eren, hold on tight. If you fall off the bike, I’m not turning around to get you.”Hopefully, with the roar of the engine, he’d leave behind the ghost of a memory Eren had managed to dig up without even trying.'When Wolf rescued Zero from the lab, he thought that it would just be the two of them, wandering the wasteland. But Nine is still out there, and Zero wants to find him and restore her family--no matter what form it takes--at any cost. Unable to say no, Wolf agrees to help her one last time.He didn't anticipate finding Eren in no-man's land. Nor did he expect the feelings he causes to surface in wolf, or the beautiful and painful memories he drags out of a place long thought buried...
Relationships: Fushimi Omi/Takatoo Tasuku
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Encore! Zine





	A Bloom in Adversity

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for Encore: An A3! Writer's Zine. I had the privilege of doing The Stranger. Thank you guys once again for having me! It was the chance of a lifetime! 
> 
> Note: Eren is a new character played by Tasuku Takato
> 
> CW: Minor and non-explicit mentions of violence, death, and sexual slavery. It's only alluded to, but still, if it squicks you out, please take care of yourself and skip this one.

“Wolf?” 

Wolf grunted, letting Zero know he was listening. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“You just did, kid,” Wolf snorted, shooting her a look out the corner of his eyes. “But I don’t see why you can’t ask another.” 

“If you’re busy—” 

“Out with it,” Wolf said. “The bike’s busy work—I can listen and work at the same time.” 

“Alright…” Zero folded herself next to him, toying with the hem of her shirt. She had long since ditched the ragged little dress the lab had dressed her in. “Do you remember Nine?” 

Wolf almost dropped the tool he was using. “Who?” 

“Nine,” she answered. “The blond man the lab sent when they were looking for me.”

“Ah…” Wolf remembered him. He remembered the god-awful blankness in his eyes, the flat affect of his voice, the veiled despair when he looked at Zero… a protective instinct curled in his gut at the memory. “Yeah. What about him?” 

Zero continued twisting the shirt in her fingers over and over again. Wolf clasped her hands to stop her; they had limited enough resources without Zero destroying her clothes with her anxious fiddling. The way she sighed and relaxed into his touch made his temper flare. How isolated had she been that a hand on hers—from  _ Wolf _ of all people—was enough to visibly settle her? Once again, only senseless and directionless hate bloomed from that lab… 

Finally, after a moment of composing herself, Zero spoke. “Well… Dom—the scientist, you remember—he told me… he told me Nine was...is my father.” 

Now  _ that _ Wolf hadn’t been expecting. “It’s been almost a year and you never told me?” 

“Would you have cared if I did?” 

Zero’s serious eyes had a way of looking right into Wolf’s heart, peeling back the prickly, inedible layers of his psyche, one by one, until his vulnerable core was exposed. He curled his hand in front of his chest, as if to protect himself from her gaze. 

“Probably not,” he huffed, even as the voice he thought long-dead inside him wailed  _ of course, I’d care! _ “Alright, so Nine is your father. Is that possible?” 

“I don’t understand it myself, honestly…” Zero rubbed the back of her head, disturbing her messy knot of hair. “All I know is what Dom told me. And… he’s gone. He disappeared and I want to find him.” 

“Why?” Wolf asked, feeling an odd sense of betrayal he couldn’t quite name. 

At that, Zero looked so unbearably sad it hurt. “Because I think of what it would be like if I hadn’t found you, Wolf. I think… even if I’d survived, I wouldn’t have lived. Even if Dom had found me again and… I can’t imagine being alone with all that. Alone and afraid… I don’t know what he is to me, Wolf, but he’s as much a victim as I am. He deserves the  _ chance _ at love and acceptance, doesn’t he?” 

The old him—before Zero, before this little girl with vines in her skin and sunshine in her smile—would have told her it wasn’t his problem. 

But he couldn’t say no to her. He couldn’t bring himself to refuse such a heartfelt request from a girl trying so desperately to find her family in whatever form she could take it. Wolf could relate to her struggle. He knew it well. 

He sighed—more for show than out of any sense of genuine frustration—and wiped his hands on his oil rag. “There’s a settlement half a day’s ride from here. It’s the largest in the area. If Nine is anywhere, someone there will have a lead.” 

Zero’s eyes glittered with dangerous hope. “How… how can you be so sure?” 

“Just trust me, kid,” Wolf grunted, wrapping his tools up. “Thing is, we gotta cross no-man’s land before we can hit the old roads. Could get a little hairy out there.” 

Zero went white. “No-man’s land?” 

“Yep.” Wolf wiped the last of the motor oil from his hands. “So get some rest tonight, kid. Tomorrow’s gonna be rough.” 

  
  


The road through no-man’s land was treacherous, but Wolf had made the journey enough times. He knew which shapes in the sand were Old Army mines or traps laid by raiders, knew where the feral dogs gathered to ambush unsuspecting prey, knew the weird dips and bends and pitfalls and everything else nature had prepared for him, ready to take him out the moment he’s distracted. Even in the gray-blue light of early dawn, Wolf navigated quickly but carefully. Zero clung to his waist, delicate fingers curling into his shirt. A solid and reassuring weight against his back… 

A crudely-made trap across the road might have killed a lesser survivor. Wolf scowled, immediately cutting the engine as he drew to a hard, stiff stop. 

“Zero,” he growled, taking his rifle from the holster on his saddle bags. “Stay with the bike, and keep quiet.” 

Zero shrank into herself. “Wolf?” 

He didn’t respond, moving on silent feet. His boots barely scraped the gravel as he crept towards the most obvious hiding spot… too obvious. In hindsight, he was either too soft or too trusting, because the crafted pile of brush and rock was such a clear trap. No sooner had he dipped into the shadows to check that a heavy body collided with his, sending him tumbling to the dirt. He landed hard on his shoulder, his rifle nearly knocked from his hands as clumsy hands tried to search him for valuables.

Unfortunately for his would-be attacker, Wolf was strong. A quick jerk of his arm and his elbow connected with the soft flesh of a solar plexus. The man—judging by the grunt of pain behind him—went down like a ton of bricks, enabling Wolf to scramble to his feet and situate his rifle. His heart raced, even as he tried to look calm. His ears strained for more footfalls, more voices, an ambush… but there was nothing. 

At the end of his barrel, Wolf came face to face with his failed assailant, who looked like he still  _ wanted _ to fight… but one look at the rifle pointed at his face and he stopped struggling. 

To the untrained eye, the man Wolf was staring down might have seemed a threat. Broad shouldered, square jawed, tall, and deeply muscled. But there was something distinctly  _ off _ about him: his coal black hair was too neatly trimmed and clean; his strong hands had no trace of scarring or calluses; his strangely-deep blue eyes were bright with fear… 

More telling was the thin, seamless collar situated around his throat. One solid band of unbroken silver, with harsh chafing beneath it. This wasn’t a survivor or a hardened hunter or a raider. He was an escaped pet. 

They sat in silent standoff. The man was poised to flee but his body froze beneath Wolf’s weapon. Meanwhile, Wolf fought the urge to vomit. Or scream. Or take his bike and his rifle to the nearest encampment and start shooting. Just the thought… the very  _ idea _ that that sort of shit existed turned his stomach and made fists of ice close over his heart. The man must have misinterpreted Wolf’s righteous—if contained—fury as murderous intent, because he shrunk further in on himself, any hope and defiance in his eyes dying in a flash as it occurred to him he might not survive this encounter. 

Thankfully, Zero broke the silence. “Wolf? Is everything alright?” 

“Damn it, Zero,” Wolf snarled. Even if everything seemed fine, she could have given away her position, or worse… he didn’t want to think about what would happen. “Stay back, kid.” 

Zero had a bad habit of not listening to him. She jogged to his side, her hand pressed over the bowie knife strapped to her thigh. She took one look at the situation and her eyes went wide. “W-wolf… what’s happening?” 

He jerked his chin at the man beneath his gun barrel. “Escaped pet. Tried to jump me.” 

The man flinched, even as Zero cocked her head and asked, “Pet? What do you mean?” 

He didn’t want to explain it to her. He didn’t want her to live with the god-awful reality of the true horrors of this world. She’d already seen so much of it, already… 

“Nothing you need to worry about, kid,” he said, nudging her behind him with his elbow. “Oi. You. What’s your name?” 

The man flinched, refusing to look away from the rifle pointed at his face. “Don’t… don’t have one.” 

Wolf rolled his eyes. “Then what did they call you?” 

The man’s eyes went blank, like he was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere he didn’t want to be. “‘Love.’ ‘Gorgeous.’ ‘Sweetheart.’ ‘Pet—’”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Wolf snapped. “What’re you doing in no-man’s land? Shit’s dangerous out here.” 

He grunted. “Got away. Ran out of food.” 

Wolf clicked his tongue with a disapproving shake of his head. Despite his annoyance he took a small handful of rations from one of his pockets and dropped them at the man’s feet; “You’re lucky I wasn’t a raider. You’d have been worse than dead. That should hold you for a few days, if you’re careful.”

“Wolf,” Zero interjected. “You can’t just leave him here!” 

_ Damn _ , that girl… Her bleeding heart was going to get them all killed someday. He knew it in his bones. “Like hell I can’t… get back to the bike, Zero.” 

“But Wolf—” 

“It’s alright,” the man said softly, cradling the small pouch of food Wolf had given him like it was something precious and fragile.“He’s done enough for me. Any other man might have killed me for what I just did.”

“But—” Zero’s lip wobbled dangerously, pulling at strings Wolf thought long severed. 

“It’s ok.” The man smiled just a little bit. It was the soft, warm smile of someone who  _ hadn’t _ faced unbearable and unimaginable pain. 

_ Damn it _ .

“We can get you to the next settlement,” Wolf growled, unable to look at the man’s wide, shocked eyes or Zero’s brilliant smile. “At least you’ll be safe from being recaptured.” 

“You… you don’t have to…”

“She’ll be useless if she thinks we left someone to die,” Wolf said, thumbing over his shoulder at Zero. “Don’t want your starving to death on my conscience, so unless you wanna rot out here, let’s move.” 

“S-sure…” 

He scrambled to follow Zero, who happily led him to the bike. She helped him stow away what few belongings he had with him in the saddle bags while Wolf secured his rifle once more, wondering idly how he was going to manage three people. 

“What do we call you?” Zero asked. 

The man shrugged. “I told you. I don’t have a name.”

“Well…” Zero tapped her lip, her brow furrowed in thought. “Then you should pick a name!”

“I can… do that?” 

“Sure! We can’t keep calling you ‘hey, you,’ or something. That would be rude.”

Wolf stifled a laugh, trying (and failing) to disguise it as a cough. The man blinked a few times, paralyzed with indecision. Wolf couldn’t blame him. 

“Eren,” he finally said. “My name is Eren.” 

Wolf tried not to visibly stiffen; “Well, then, Eren, hold on tight. If you fall off the bike, I’m not turning around to get you.” 

Hopefully, with the roar of the engine, he’d leave behind the ghost of a memory Eren had managed to dig up without even trying. 

  
  


The settlement—Mankai was its official name—was huge. The end of the world served as a decent equalizer, so people from all backgrounds and all walks of life had congregated in this makeshift city in the middle of nowhere. A decent bonus to being surrounded by so many people was that no one gave a shit who was coming or going. So long as Wolf and his little entourage didn’t cause problems, they could hunt for Nine in peace. 

No one asked questions about where Zero got her seeds or her sprouts, but they fetched a hefty enough price that they were able to get room and board large enough to accommodate the three of them. Zero seemed inordinately proud, preening when Wolf patted her on the head for a job well done. They had no idea how long they would be in one place, so Wolf earned some cash here and there doing odd work for people. Anything from doing vehicle maintenance to building a shack for a new family. It was hard and dirty work, and it required more human contact in one day than Wolf had had in all the time before he’d met Zero. 

But as uncomfortable as the adoring faces of the people he helped made him, as hard as it was to be gentle around the kids that flocked to him (what exactly was it about him that made kids think he  _ wanted _ to serve as their personal jungle gym) it was a far better sight than being in the apartment. It wasn’t a bad space, per se. Small, but functional, with more windows than Wolf would prefer, but Zero liked the light. And he couldn’t deny that girl anything that brought her joy. No, what drove Wolf out before sunrise and kept him out well past sunset was Eren’s presence. 

Eren was quiet. Wolf  _ thought _ he wanted some peace and quiet, but there was something about Eren’s silence that rankled Wolf’s nerves. He tended to sit quietly in the corner, contritely staring at the swirls in the wooden floor. Waiting. Always waiting. Wolf couldn’t stand to be around it. So he spent his time away, hoping every day that Zero would come back with a lead they could use. But every night, Zero came back empty handed, and the three of them would collapse into the thin mattresses arranged on one side of the apartment. 

That was their life. Their routine. Rinse, and repeat. Day after day.

It was late one night, a few weeks into their search, when Wolf came home later than usual. There had been a quarry collapse not far outside the village, and Wolf had assisted in the rescue efforts. His muscles ached, and he was coated in dried sweat and dust, but his bag was full of supplies and food rations, and everyone was accounted for and in one piece. It was more than anyone could have hoped for. 

Wolf snuck into the apartment, trying not to wake his wards, but it was a futile measure. Eren was perched on his knees, waiting in the same spot he’d been sitting in when Wolf had left that morning. Dark smears under his eyes stood out stark against his pale skin, made all the worse by the low lighting. 

“You look like shit,” Wolf grunted, shelving his rifle. “What’re you still doing up?”

Eren bit his lip, unable (or unwilling) to meet Wolf’s eyes. “Waiting for you.” 

Wolf rolled his eyes with a disapproving huff; “Why? I can put myself to bed.” 

“I… it was required of me. To wait. In case the master called on me.” Eren’s voice was thick and rough with some unidentifiable emotion. His face turned rosy with something… probably shame. 

Wolf rolled his eyes to disguise his absolute  _ disgust _ with Eren’s former life. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m not gonna… ‘call on you.’ You can just go to bed whenever, alright?” 

“But…” Eren straightened, his eyes hard and defiant. “I can’t offer anything else. I refuse to remain here on your pity alone.” 

“So you’d rather offer your body and personhood than accept my charity?” Wolf asked, disparaging and sarcastic. 

Without missing a beat, Eren answered, “Yes. I don’t have much pride left, but what I  _ do _ have demands it.” 

Whatever Wolf had been expecting from Eren, his sudden show of spine caught him off guard. “I… see. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t plan on utilizing your… skills any time soon. No offense.” 

Eren’s lips thinned as he glared at his knees. “Regardless, I will remain available. Maybe you’ll reconsider when you grow tired of my freeloading.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“How long do you think it will take before you’ve decided you’ve had enough of me? How long until you throw me out, regardless of Zero’s wishes?” He almost managed to hide it behind his wall of anger, but Wolf could hear Eren’s voice tremble with barely-contained fear. “I will fight for my place here as long as I can. I refuse to be discarded for being useless…”

There was a tremble in Eren’s hands, even though he had them clenched in the tightest fists he could. Wolf was at a loss. How did he even respond to that? He felt sick.

“You underestimate me,” he snarled, stalking past Eren in a huff. “Sit there ‘til your legs rot and fall off, then. See if I care.” 

  
  


The next morning, Wolf woke up after everyone else. A rare occurrence for him, but for some reason he had been up all night in fitful half sleep. 

“Good morning, Wolf,” Zero chirped, holding up a plate of food. “Eren made breakfast! And coffee!” 

Wolf’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is… that a fact?” 

“Yeah!” Zero grinned, running her hand over the intricate, beautiful braid hanging over her shoulder. “He did this for me, too! He said if we can get scrap fabric, he can make flowers for it!” 

Wolf ran as gentle a hand as he could manage over the swell of the braid, following a twisting strand that went the opposite direction from the remainder of the strands. It looked so familiar, even if Wolf couldn’t quite put his finger on what… 

And then, Eren started humming, and it all came flooding back from wherever Wolf had buried it all those years ago...

  
  


Eren changed after that. Even if he still held Wolf at a distance, there was a weird, petty defiance in it. Like he was trying to prove a point. There was a strange level of spite in the way he prepared meals, like he was doing it to prove he could. There was a smug satisfaction when he fastened Zero’s hair in a strong, intricate braid that kept everything up and neat and out of the way. There was a rebellion in the way he chose new clothing for himself, broke out of whatever shell had formed around him, and became a new man. He smiled for Zero. He sang to himself. He scrubbed at stains in the laundry with the vigor of a man possessed. He treated Wolf’s wounds with a begrudging care. He was a totally different person from the man they’d rescued from a refuse pile in no-man’s land… except the collar.

The collar bothered Wolf on a fundamental level. He couldn’t quite put his finger on  _ why _ … but beyond whatever emotions he had about it, the skin on Eren’s neck was turning a vicious, angry red. They had to do something, lest infection spread. 

So one night, while Zero was out, he pulled Eren aside. 

“I’m taking that off,” he declared. 

“You can’t,” Eren protested, shrinking away from Wolf’s touch. “You don’t have the key.” 

Wolf brandished a soft leather case with his tools in it… old, delicate things from before. From another life. “Don’t need a key. Got everything I need right here.” 

Eren bit his lip. “But…” 

Wolf responded with an exaggerated eye-roll. “Do you trust me?” 

“Not really,” Eren answered without hesitation. 

“Smart man,” Wolf said, “but if we don’t take care of that, you’re gonna get sick. It’s already bothering your neck. I can tell.” 

Eren stiffened in rebellion, ready to refuse, before he finally deflated and let Wolf get to work. The seamless ring of metal was tricky, but not impossible. It  _ had  _ to come off somehow, or Eren’s neck would be much worse for wear. 

“So I take it, considering you mentioned a key, it used to come off?” Wolf asked, finally finding a slight imperfection just below the pulse point. A bit more prodding yielded a locking mechanism. 

Eren’s throat bobbed around the collar, his pulse visibly quickening at Wolf’s touch. “Yes. My… master. Removed it for bathing. Otherwise, it remained on.” 

It took a moment for Wolf to realize the groaning sound he was hearing was his own teeth grinding together, but he otherwise remained silent. What could he even say? ‘Sucks you were a slave?’ No. He wasn’t sure if turning away from the painful, awful truth of the shitty world they lived in was good or helpful, but he couldn’t bear it. It unearthed too many instincts he’d thought long dead. 

One of the collar’s mechanisms gave way, the near-deafening click of metal on metal severing the bow-tight thread of tension. 

“Why do you care, anyway?” Eren asked, visible anxiety bleeding out of his shoulders as the ring began to loosen, coming away from his angry, irritated skin. 

Wolf shrugged. “It’s irritating your skin. Can cause infection. I can’t afford you getting a fever from something I can fix.” 

“No, I mean…” Eren huffed, suddenly falling silent. “Forget it.” 

Wolf rolled his eyes, huffing under his breath. “Just spit it out. The worst that I can do is get annoyed with you.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Yep. My bark is way worse than my bite. Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold.” 

The sound that came out of Eren was soft and rusty, but it was unmistakably a laugh. Raw, gentle and unrefined… heat flushed through Wolf’s core, his heart flipping over and breaking in half at the sound. He thought about how a different Eren—one who had seen a gentler world, who’d been shown the care he deserved—would have a very different laugh. One that wasn’t so inhibited and tentative. The hint of a smile at the corner of Eren’s mouth pulled at a previously unnoticed dimple… 

“Is that why you haven’t sent me away?” 

The oxygen abruptly siphoned out of the room, so quickly Wolf was surprised his ears didn’t pop. “Tch… haven’t we been over this?” He shifted, trying to disguise how uncomfortable he was. 

“It’s just…” Eren bit his lip. His eyes were bright—almost feverish—and his long,  _ long _ lashes brushed the tops of his cheekbones. “I’ve just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve spent my whole life having to be useful to  _ anyone _ just to stay alive, and I’ve just… been here. And I can’t help but be afraid that you’re going to throw me out when you’re sick of me.” 

Wolf rolled his eyes. “I said that—” 

“I know what you said,” Eren interrupted, dislodging Wolf’s hands to look him in the eyes. “I know what you said… but I haven’t survived this long taking people at their word. You haven’t given me any reason to distrust you, yet. I can’t help but be afraid of the moment when I let my guard down and you send me away. I don’t think I could survive that.” 

Eren had looked Wolf in the eye before. It shouldn’t have been so potent. But Wolf hadn’t realized how guarded his gaze had been until that moment, when the walls came down and his eyes shimmered with vulnerability. The expressive freedom made it so much  _ more _ than it had been before. Wolf felt like he might actually be really seeing Eren for the first time, and the realization made something draw up tight and painful in his chest. He could barely breathe past the emotion squeezing around his heart. 

“Eren,” Wolf said gently… too gently. He flushed as he returned to work on the tricky lock on the collar. It was easier to say what needed to be said when he wasn’t looking at those eyes. “I know there’s nothing I can say that will make your fears go away. I can tell you I won’t send you away or make you go anywhere you don’t want to until I’m blue in the face and it won’t help. But… I’d hope you can trust me.”

“It’s hard to trust someone I don’t really know,” Eren countered. 

Wolf bit his lip, something pounding at his chest, begging to get free. “What do you want to know? I’m not an interesting man.” 

“I just… even Zero doesn’t seem to know who you are. Like… what’s your name.” 

“Wolf.” 

“I mean your  _ real _ name.” 

“It’s Wolf… whoever I was before Wolf… he’s gone now. He’s dead, buried with his wife and daughter.” 

Eren stiffened. “You’re married?”

“I was.” Wolf stopped working just long enough to pull a long chain out of his shirt. The band on the chain was long tarnished, unrecognizable from the shimmering white-gold it used to be. “She died. Years ago. Not long after my daughter died.” 

Eren thumbed at the band, the metal skin-warm from being tucked against Wolf’s chest. “What happened?” 

Wolf sighed. “The end of the world happened. I… it almost broke me. To lose them. I promised myself I wouldn’t let myself get attached again. But then… Zero is so much like my daughter. My wife used to braid her hair… She was a bit of a troublemaker and a braid was the only way to keep her hair manageable. These little things remind me so much of what I lost. It’s hard not to be protective of what I’ve gained. Because as much as I saved Zero… she saved me right back. And I know she wants to find Nine. She wants her  _ real _ father. I get it…” 

“Wolf…” 

Wolf swiped at his eyes. “Sorry. Don’t know where that came from. Here, I’m almost done.” 

Eren sat still as Wolf undid the final tumbler. A heavy silence settled over them, almost stifling. So much so that the heavy  _ click _ of the collar falling from Eren’s neck was almost deafening. 

“There. You’re free.” Wolf touched the red ring where the band had sat, warm and soft. 

Eren leaned into the touch, pressing into Wolf’s hand unexpectedly. “Zero loves you, too, you know? Despite how prickly you pretend to be, you’re very easy to love, Wolf. Nine isn’t going to replace you. Of that, I am sure.” 

Their eye contact lit fires in Wolf he’d thought were long extinguished. His heart raced as they just sat in the quiet and  _ stared _ … his lips tingled with the foreign desire for touch.

Then the door slammed open, shattering the moment. Zero’s eyes were wide, her smile slack with joy. 

“Wolf… I found him.” 

  
  


If Wolf could tell himself a year ago where he’d be now, he’d have laughed himself out of the room. A hermit living at the mercy of the harsh land, suddenly living with a roof over his head and a bed at night. Before, the silence was an old companion. Now, between Zero and Nine learning to be humans and Eren coming out of the protective shell he’d built, he scarcely knew it.

Wolf would probably always be impossibly gruff and blunt to a fault. He would always bristle when Zero lavished him with affection, or Nine sat next to him just to share space, or Eren would touch the small of his back with increasingly bold hands… as he learned to let people back in, it became easier. He learned to accept it, even as his entire being shivered from so much contact after so long with none. The amount of affection being poured into his dried out shell was probably enough to kill a man like him. 

But, as Eren’s hands settled on his skin, and his body flushed with beautiful, suffocating warmth, he figured it wasn’t a bad way to go. 


End file.
